Like the proverbial elephant in the room that everyone tries to ignore, inactivity on the Sotto Voce site hangs over this blog like an inconvenient truth. As of now SV appears to be one of those Live Sites/Dead Markets I complained about last May, and I've thought long and hard over whether and how I should address it.
My first thought was to go through and erase all traces of my endorsements, but on a blog devoted to promoting online journals that felt somewhat dishonest. At the same time, for all those people who have contacted me after poring over my interview with Emily Thorp hoping to find an answer, I have none, nor do the other staff members I've e-mailed, and of course the interview was back in November 2008 when all of us associated with this new and unique journal were riding high on the first issue.
Still I feel it is time to face the music. Not that I had any responsibility for the creation or administration of SV. I started out as a reviewer––a position I asked for because I found the whole format innovative and exciting–-and would have begun serving as Assistant Editor for the next issue. That didn't give me any say over everyday functions, but as someone who has spent the last 10 years trying to convince people that online publishing is every bit as good, or better than, print, a journal I've been associated with playing into the easy-come-easy-go image some still have of online publishing feels like a black eye.
What bothers me most,though, is that SV was a perfect mix of the best aspects of print and online publishing. The senior staff were well-credentialed and most had or were pursuing MFAs. Yet each submission automatically shot out to 15 or 20 vetted reviewers of varying backgrounds who rated each piece on a scale from 1-5 and added comments. Those comments were considered for the editing of accepted pieces and were included with rejected pieces so submitters could actually find out why a piece didn't make the cut. Finally, and best of all, was an anonymous review system. Even the Managing Editor did not know the name of the submitter or his or her credentials until it was time to send out responses. Playing fields don't get any leveler than that. The icing on that cake was a nice little payment.
That's not to denigrate solid online journals that don't have these features. It required a sophisticated online submission and distribution system designed by someone who, I believe, donated her time. And all publications want to pay contributors, they just can't afford to self-fund as Emily did. That's what makes this such a loss to the online community. All the stars aligned to produce something great. Only they turned out to be shooting stars that burnt out before crashing to earth.
In the meantime I will be back with some of my old friends at The Rose & Thorn that, while sporting a new look, still holds to the same values it has for over ten years: giving new and emerging writers a chance and, even if their system doesn't block the names out, choosing pieces solely based on quality and not on the writer's name or the school they attended or the other journals they've appeared in. Sometimes tried and true is better than new and innovative.
Showing posts with label Zine Scene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zine Scene. Show all posts
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Stop! Do You Really Want to Submit There?
You are going through a dry spell. It has been months, maybe even over a year since your last submission was accepted. You've been circulating the same two––three––five––stories all that time. You started with the journals everyone dreams about. You've worked down to the ones where you thought you had a fighting chance, and nothing––nada-–bupkiss.
These are the times that try writers' souls and when you need to exercise the most self control. You have reached the point where you want your work to appear somewhere––anywhere––someone can read it.
There's the site you found last weekend that is nothing more than a webpage with guidelines telling how they encourage new and emerging writers and are reading for their first issue to appear this winter. They are looking for "quality work." Who isn't? You have no idea who will be reading your work, what the website will look like when it's complete, or what style of work they will publish.
Then there's the online journal that did put out one issue and promises the next issue is coming as soon as they have enough submissions. That was a year ago last spring.
Last week you found a journal that has actually published several issues. They claim to want only your best writing but everything in it reads like a third grader's essay on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."
So how low are you willing to go to get published? It is something worth thinking about.
There is nothing wrong with submitting to brand new publications that haven't yet put out a first issue. This is one way to improve your chances of acceptance, and if the publication develops a good reputation it will make a good future credit. On the other hand, if everything surrounding your work is junk, you have ruined your chances of submitting that piece elsewhere, and the credit is not one you'll want to tout.
Use your common sense when considering any new publication. I submitted for the inaugural issue of Sotto Voce, but they already had an attractive site, an impressive staff, and a sophisticated online submissions system. Oh, and they paid, which is always a good sign of staying power. When a website shows nothing but some guidelines and you suspect the "we" is really an "I" wait until they've published a few issues before submitting.
The same goes ten times over for journals without a regular publication schedule. While I am a huge supporter of online journals, the fact is anyone can start one. What could be more painful than having a journal publish your work and then disappear into cyberspace? When an editor appears to publish whenever he gets around to it, someday he won't.
Finally, and this is the toughest one, there are those journals where it looks like you'd have a good chance of getting published, but mainly because the writing simply isn't very high calibre. Is there really any point in publishing in a journal where all you have to do is spell correctly––and sometimes not even that––to get in?
When you've gone through a long dry spell, you may find yourself eventually submitting anywhere and everywhere, but think carefully. Do you know anything about the journal? Will the journal last or will it disappear? If your work does appear in that journal, would you want to send your friends and writing colleagues over there to read it? If not, then don't submit there. Instead, keep revising and if you run out of places to send an old piece, write something new and fresh. Sometimes just being published isn't enough.
These are the times that try writers' souls and when you need to exercise the most self control. You have reached the point where you want your work to appear somewhere––anywhere––someone can read it.
There's the site you found last weekend that is nothing more than a webpage with guidelines telling how they encourage new and emerging writers and are reading for their first issue to appear this winter. They are looking for "quality work." Who isn't? You have no idea who will be reading your work, what the website will look like when it's complete, or what style of work they will publish.
Then there's the online journal that did put out one issue and promises the next issue is coming as soon as they have enough submissions. That was a year ago last spring.
Last week you found a journal that has actually published several issues. They claim to want only your best writing but everything in it reads like a third grader's essay on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."
So how low are you willing to go to get published? It is something worth thinking about.
There is nothing wrong with submitting to brand new publications that haven't yet put out a first issue. This is one way to improve your chances of acceptance, and if the publication develops a good reputation it will make a good future credit. On the other hand, if everything surrounding your work is junk, you have ruined your chances of submitting that piece elsewhere, and the credit is not one you'll want to tout.
Use your common sense when considering any new publication. I submitted for the inaugural issue of Sotto Voce, but they already had an attractive site, an impressive staff, and a sophisticated online submissions system. Oh, and they paid, which is always a good sign of staying power. When a website shows nothing but some guidelines and you suspect the "we" is really an "I" wait until they've published a few issues before submitting.
The same goes ten times over for journals without a regular publication schedule. While I am a huge supporter of online journals, the fact is anyone can start one. What could be more painful than having a journal publish your work and then disappear into cyberspace? When an editor appears to publish whenever he gets around to it, someday he won't.
Finally, and this is the toughest one, there are those journals where it looks like you'd have a good chance of getting published, but mainly because the writing simply isn't very high calibre. Is there really any point in publishing in a journal where all you have to do is spell correctly––and sometimes not even that––to get in?
When you've gone through a long dry spell, you may find yourself eventually submitting anywhere and everywhere, but think carefully. Do you know anything about the journal? Will the journal last or will it disappear? If your work does appear in that journal, would you want to send your friends and writing colleagues over there to read it? If not, then don't submit there. Instead, keep revising and if you run out of places to send an old piece, write something new and fresh. Sometimes just being published isn't enough.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Kenyon Review Reading Period Opens
The Kenyon Review reading period opens September 15 and runs through January 15. They accept submissions only through their online system. Submissions will be considered for both the print and online versions.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Networking on the Net
Posting about fellow blogger l. lee lowe's most recent online novel got me thinking what a marvelous boost the Internet has been for networking among writers. Writing has often been called a solitary undertaking, and it can be even more solitary for those of us who labor away in middle class suburbia, where we can go years at a time without making contact with another writer. There are only so many pricey conferences one can attend, and a 45 minute commute on a crowded train is a lot to go through for the privilege of running into someone in a center city coffee shop.
Thanks to the Internet, I am now in touch with other writers just about every day, in forums, on their blogs, or through e-mails where we exchange news and ideas about our work. When a writing friend has a novel published or a new story coming out in a literary publication, I always link to it here on zine writer. And they do the same for me. If I want input on something I'm working on, I always have a few names I can call on.
Then there are the friends who provide ideas and inspiration like Kimberly Davis who writes Kim's Craft Blog. An accomplished writer and instructor, Kim never fails to provide me with food for thought. Of course, the blogs of my friends and former R&T colleagues Angie Ledbetter (Gumbo Writer) and Kat Magendie (Tender Graces) are always a nice place to take a break. There are others I've mentioned often here, and you can find them all in the sidebar of my favorite blogs and favorite sites.
Some of us share other things in common as well as writing. For example, my blogger friend Cashew Elliott at Open the Vein inspired me to start my other blog Cross-Examine on a topic that is extremely important to me both personally and politically––healthcare reform. That and canvassing for signatures has taken up a lot of my time lately and caused me to post less here and neglect visiting some of my friends' blogs. I hope you'll forgive me. I'll be back when this d--d thing is passed. In the mean time, if you live in the US, I hope you'll stop by Cross-Examine. I make a point not to spew empty rhetoric and I know enough about the subject that you just might learn something you are not getting from the media––then, that's not hard to do.Okay, I'm slapping my own face.
Back to the point. The Internet is a great place for writers to self-promote and to promote others. Do unto others benefits us all, so I hope all of you also frequent other writers' blogs or post their successes. You'll get it back three times over.
Thanks to the Internet, I am now in touch with other writers just about every day, in forums, on their blogs, or through e-mails where we exchange news and ideas about our work. When a writing friend has a novel published or a new story coming out in a literary publication, I always link to it here on zine writer. And they do the same for me. If I want input on something I'm working on, I always have a few names I can call on.
Then there are the friends who provide ideas and inspiration like Kimberly Davis who writes Kim's Craft Blog. An accomplished writer and instructor, Kim never fails to provide me with food for thought. Of course, the blogs of my friends and former R&T colleagues Angie Ledbetter (Gumbo Writer) and Kat Magendie (Tender Graces) are always a nice place to take a break. There are others I've mentioned often here, and you can find them all in the sidebar of my favorite blogs and favorite sites.
Some of us share other things in common as well as writing. For example, my blogger friend Cashew Elliott at Open the Vein inspired me to start my other blog Cross-Examine on a topic that is extremely important to me both personally and politically––healthcare reform. That and canvassing for signatures has taken up a lot of my time lately and caused me to post less here and neglect visiting some of my friends' blogs. I hope you'll forgive me. I'll be back when this d--d thing is passed. In the mean time, if you live in the US, I hope you'll stop by Cross-Examine. I make a point not to spew empty rhetoric and I know enough about the subject that you just might learn something you are not getting from the media––then, that's not hard to do.Okay, I'm slapping my own face.
Back to the point. The Internet is a great place for writers to self-promote and to promote others. Do unto others benefits us all, so I hope all of you also frequent other writers' blogs or post their successes. You'll get it back three times over.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Long Story Short: But Is It Too Short?
In a recent Funds for Writers Newsletter contributor Julie Bloss Kelsey tells about finding your next writing gig on Twitter. Twitter, of course, is the site where you keep the world updated on your doings in 140 characters or less. Many feel that Twitter, along with MySpace and Facebook and all the other social networking sites, is a must for writers and wannabe writers to promote their work. Now, Kelsey tells us,
Hem, of course, was master of the minimal, the king of leave 'em guessing, but while he may have considered the six-worder his best story, the rest of us are pretty glad most of his work is somewhat expanded.
Flash Fiction, which, depending on the guidelines could mean anything from under 1000 words to under 100, became popular over the last decade, most likely due to the growing amount of literature being published online. While putting a name to it may be relatively new, many classics fall into that genre, like Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" that weighs in at 1015. Several of Poe's most famous works, while not close to a thousand, are still quite short, often in the of 2000-2500 range. Going back to Hemingway "The Old Man at the Bridge" is less than 800 words.
There's no doubt that short demands more skill than long. I always counsel new writers to shoot for lower word counts as way of disciplining themselves to trim the fat. In my own mind, I feel that most short fiction exceeding 4000-4500 words leans toward the self-indulgent and could benefit from a trim. That includes the work of new writers and established writers, who, having made their name, are allowed a certain leeway.
However, there is short, and then there is short. While we may marvel at the ability of a Hemingway or Joyce Carol Oates to tell a story in one or two sentences, the majority of writers don't share that skill. Most aspiring writers don't grasp that Flash, for example, is more than telling a quick story. It requires the writer in a very few words to, as Hemingway did with "Bridge" and Chopin did with "Hour," develop three dimensional characters with a past and present––sometimes even a future.
As fascinating as Hem's six-word story is, even he couldn't develop the characters behind it. In fact, most of these stories are pretty much clever statements with a twist at the end. Oates's six-worder at the site above (I hesitate to quote it here. What is fair use when the whole story is just six words?) really tells us nothing of the characters behind it. Why does she want to live without him? Was the problem hers or his? Indeed, we assume the POV is that of the woman, but is it? Was the lover of the opposite or same sex? Was it a lover or maybe a parent?
While these mysteries are worth pondering, after a few, I'd get tired of the pondering and want more. A few years ago I remember leafing through a collection of stories under 100 words that a seat mate loaned me on a plan ride. After just a few it became tedious. All of them relied on a surprise or shock ending and most were not particularly well-written.
I think six-word stories make a great exercise, and if competitions encourage you to try it, why not. However, few people do it as well as they think they do. For my part, I hope twitterzines and nano-fiction are just a passing fancy.
"Twitter markets, or "twitterzines", are popping up online lookingLately, many "six-word competitions"(see this six-word site) are cropping up as well based on Ernest Hemingway's answer to that challenge,
for 140 character "nanofiction" (also known as "twiction" or
"picofiction") and poetry."
"For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."
Hem, of course, was master of the minimal, the king of leave 'em guessing, but while he may have considered the six-worder his best story, the rest of us are pretty glad most of his work is somewhat expanded.
Flash Fiction, which, depending on the guidelines could mean anything from under 1000 words to under 100, became popular over the last decade, most likely due to the growing amount of literature being published online. While putting a name to it may be relatively new, many classics fall into that genre, like Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" that weighs in at 1015. Several of Poe's most famous works, while not close to a thousand, are still quite short, often in the of 2000-2500 range. Going back to Hemingway "The Old Man at the Bridge" is less than 800 words.
There's no doubt that short demands more skill than long. I always counsel new writers to shoot for lower word counts as way of disciplining themselves to trim the fat. In my own mind, I feel that most short fiction exceeding 4000-4500 words leans toward the self-indulgent and could benefit from a trim. That includes the work of new writers and established writers, who, having made their name, are allowed a certain leeway.
However, there is short, and then there is short. While we may marvel at the ability of a Hemingway or Joyce Carol Oates to tell a story in one or two sentences, the majority of writers don't share that skill. Most aspiring writers don't grasp that Flash, for example, is more than telling a quick story. It requires the writer in a very few words to, as Hemingway did with "Bridge" and Chopin did with "Hour," develop three dimensional characters with a past and present––sometimes even a future.
As fascinating as Hem's six-word story is, even he couldn't develop the characters behind it. In fact, most of these stories are pretty much clever statements with a twist at the end. Oates's six-worder at the site above (I hesitate to quote it here. What is fair use when the whole story is just six words?) really tells us nothing of the characters behind it. Why does she want to live without him? Was the problem hers or his? Indeed, we assume the POV is that of the woman, but is it? Was the lover of the opposite or same sex? Was it a lover or maybe a parent?
While these mysteries are worth pondering, after a few, I'd get tired of the pondering and want more. A few years ago I remember leafing through a collection of stories under 100 words that a seat mate loaned me on a plan ride. After just a few it became tedious. All of them relied on a surprise or shock ending and most were not particularly well-written.
I think six-word stories make a great exercise, and if competitions encourage you to try it, why not. However, few people do it as well as they think they do. For my part, I hope twitterzines and nano-fiction are just a passing fancy.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Issue # 3 Sotto Voce Now Live
Issue #3 of Sotto Voce just went live. I just received the notice and have to dash off to work this morning, but I hope Managing Editor Emily Thorp doesn't mind my quoting her note to staff that due to our "disparate tastes" it is "varied and unusual," which is a tribute to their fantastic review system and what, I believe, will keep readers coming back.
As most of you probably know––or will if you click the link to my interview with Emily––all submission remain anonymous during the review process and each is rated by about twenty reviewers. So two things I especially enjoy about a new issue are seeing if any of the stories I liked made it in and the bios of the writers. It's fun to see if I guessed right on gender.
This seems like a good time to also mention that starting with the next issue I will be an Assistant Fiction Editor at SV. That means I'll be helping with the editing of accepted pieces.
Please visit Sotto Voce, and don't forget to vote for the stories you'd like to see in the annual print anthology. Oh, and––ahem––if this is your first visit, check out the archives where you'll find one story of mine in the spring and fall issues, and it's not too late to vote for them too!
As most of you probably know––or will if you click the link to my interview with Emily––all submission remain anonymous during the review process and each is rated by about twenty reviewers. So two things I especially enjoy about a new issue are seeing if any of the stories I liked made it in and the bios of the writers. It's fun to see if I guessed right on gender.
This seems like a good time to also mention that starting with the next issue I will be an Assistant Fiction Editor at SV. That means I'll be helping with the editing of accepted pieces.
Please visit Sotto Voce, and don't forget to vote for the stories you'd like to see in the annual print anthology. Oh, and––ahem––if this is your first visit, check out the archives where you'll find one story of mine in the spring and fall issues, and it's not too late to vote for them too!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Reading Periods: Think Before You Send
If you've researched places to submit your work in the last couple months––and aren't we all always researching markets––this scenario is probably familiar. You pick a publication from Duotrope's or another market listing to research further. After spending an hour or two reading a few issues of the zine or the samples a print journal provides online, you're feeling the excitement of a potential match for that story you just wrote. You click on the guidelines, and in big red letters at the top of the page you read:
You check your calendar and breath a sigh of relief. It's still only June 12. They accept online submissions. You can get it in right under the wire. Better that than waiting. Who knows where you'll be by September 30.
Think again.
Some publications will explain that the break is due to a backlog. If so, then an extra story in the slush pile probably won't make much difference. However, college and university affiliated journals usually close down completely for summer break. Others close because they won't have enough readers or those readers want a vacation. In that case, they are planning to clear the desks before shutting down.
So let's say your story is dropped onto the slush pile on June 12 in the PM, and the readers plan to clear out by June 15 in the PM. They've been working for days to try to finish off the pile but each reviewed piece appears to spawn 10 more. The managing editor is leaving shortly for her beach house and reviewers feel a strong vibe not to send her anything that is not really, really worthy of her time.
Now think about submitting your work on September 30 in the AM. All the readers are fresh and rested. At universities, they may even be brand new readers all aquiver to dig in and get started. The pile is a lot smaller so readers have more time and less other work to measure your piece agaisnt.
Which of these situations is more likely to benefit a new or emerging writer with nothing in particular to make him or his work stand out?
Certainly it isn't a lock that your piece will be accepted at the beginning of the reading period or that it will be rejected too close to the end. But new writers need every advantage they can get. We writers can be an impatient lot when it comes to submitting, but this time of year you would do much better to mark your calendar (and you should have some reminder system as it is far too easy to forget and have to start all over again), and submit early on when submissions first open. In the meantime, let your piece rest, and re-read some of the stories that made you think it was a match. You may change your mind, or you may decide the story still needs a few revisions to make it fit.
There's no guaranty, but in the end you'll have improved your chances considerably.
Cool Zine will be closed to submissions from June 15 to September 30.
You check your calendar and breath a sigh of relief. It's still only June 12. They accept online submissions. You can get it in right under the wire. Better that than waiting. Who knows where you'll be by September 30.
Think again.
Some publications will explain that the break is due to a backlog. If so, then an extra story in the slush pile probably won't make much difference. However, college and university affiliated journals usually close down completely for summer break. Others close because they won't have enough readers or those readers want a vacation. In that case, they are planning to clear the desks before shutting down.
So let's say your story is dropped onto the slush pile on June 12 in the PM, and the readers plan to clear out by June 15 in the PM. They've been working for days to try to finish off the pile but each reviewed piece appears to spawn 10 more. The managing editor is leaving shortly for her beach house and reviewers feel a strong vibe not to send her anything that is not really, really worthy of her time.
Now think about submitting your work on September 30 in the AM. All the readers are fresh and rested. At universities, they may even be brand new readers all aquiver to dig in and get started. The pile is a lot smaller so readers have more time and less other work to measure your piece agaisnt.
Which of these situations is more likely to benefit a new or emerging writer with nothing in particular to make him or his work stand out?
Certainly it isn't a lock that your piece will be accepted at the beginning of the reading period or that it will be rejected too close to the end. But new writers need every advantage they can get. We writers can be an impatient lot when it comes to submitting, but this time of year you would do much better to mark your calendar (and you should have some reminder system as it is far too easy to forget and have to start all over again), and submit early on when submissions first open. In the meantime, let your piece rest, and re-read some of the stories that made you think it was a match. You may change your mind, or you may decide the story still needs a few revisions to make it fit.
There's no guaranty, but in the end you'll have improved your chances considerably.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
How I Became an Editor
Did you read that little piece at the top of my blog about CROSSxCHECKING? That's my new venture––a critiquing and editing service. In honor of the launch I thought I'd give a little background on how I came to editing, which will also serve as a way of thanking those who presented me with the opportunity.
Since then I've found a better balance, writing and submitting, blogging, and finally fitting in time to read as well. For a while I got my editing fix reviewing for Sotto Voce where we comment on all submissions, but while we are supposed to supply a couple lines of feedback, I find myself itching to tell more. I don't want to leave it at a "weak ending." I want to tell the writer when the dialogue is good but the characters feel cliche and what can be done to fix it.
Every editor I've worked under––Whitney Potsus, Barb Quinn, and now Emily Thorp––have combined producing fine zines with encouraging new writers and helping them improve their craft. They've taught me a lot and now I'd like to pass it on.
So tell your writer friends, CROSSxCHECKING is open for business.
If you've read my bio in the sidebar, you know that just prior to starting this blog I was Co-Managing Editor for The Rose & Thorn, but the journey started even before that thanks to a young woman named Whitney Potsus. Whitney, we've lost touch, but if you are out there I hope you'll read this and contact me.
A few months after buckling down to finally pursue my dream––after some 40 years––of becoming a writer, I joined Writers Village University to take some courses. The site recently re-launched T-Zero as a quarterly, but when I joined it was a monthly zine publishing craft articles as well as fiction. As it was poised to become a paying market, they were looking to increase staff. At that point I barely thought I could write let alone edit, so you can imagine my surprise when Whitney, who had just been hired as Nonfiction Editor, contacted me about an article I'd submitted and after working on it with me, asked if I'd like to become the other Assistant Editor on her staff.
To this day I'm not sure if she saw something in me or, confident in her own editing and teaching abilities, figured she could mold this lump of clay into a real editor. To say "she taught me everything I know" might be a cliche, but it is no exaggeration. Whitney liked giving new writers a chance, so if the topic was right we might be open to accepting work that was far below perfect. That didn't mean we published anything less than perfect. By the time we were done, it had to meet Whitney's high standards, and the first couple of articles I worked on went back and forth so many times I think the writer really hated me once the zine went live. Over time, I got the hang of it, though, until I could pick everything out the first go-round and express the changes required more precisely.
Eventually, the little group at T-Zero went our separate ways to pursue our different goals, but I was addicted. When one of my early stories was accepted by R&T, I decided to try out as an editor there, and was glad of my experience at T-Zero since R&T required a little background.
R&T staffers reading this will appreciate when I say I received so many welcoming e-mails, I told my husband it felt a bit like a cyber-AA meeting. But that "new-kid-on-the-block" feeling dissipated shortly and soon Managing Editor Barbara Quinn and I became good friends, and if I have any complaint about working with her it would be that she opened too many opportunities. Soon my climb-the-ladder and take-on-ever-more-responsibility personality––the side I'd thought to submerge in becoming a writer––got the best of me. I was a Co-Managing Editor and Blog Manager. I was conducting or assigning book reviews and author interviews––all fascinating, don't get me wrong––but I was no longer writing my stories. With great reluctance I left the zine that felt like part of my family.
R&T staffers reading this will appreciate when I say I received so many welcoming e-mails, I told my husband it felt a bit like a cyber-AA meeting. But that "new-kid-on-the-block" feeling dissipated shortly and soon Managing Editor Barbara Quinn and I became good friends, and if I have any complaint about working with her it would be that she opened too many opportunities. Soon my climb-the-ladder and take-on-ever-more-responsibility personality––the side I'd thought to submerge in becoming a writer––got the best of me. I was a Co-Managing Editor and Blog Manager. I was conducting or assigning book reviews and author interviews––all fascinating, don't get me wrong––but I was no longer writing my stories. With great reluctance I left the zine that felt like part of my family.
Every editor I've worked under––Whitney Potsus, Barb Quinn, and now Emily Thorp––have combined producing fine zines with encouraging new writers and helping them improve their craft. They've taught me a lot and now I'd like to pass it on.
So tell your writer friends, CROSSxCHECKING is open for business.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Publishing Online: Going Naked in Public
Writers have always faced the dilemma of how family and friends–-particularly those recreated on the page––will react to our published work, but publishing online is akin to that nightmare of walking into your workplace and discovering you are bare-a--ed naked. Today not just those we know but those we've just met, like prospective employers or a possible love interest, can Google our names and find everything we've posted from stories and poems to comments in forums.
Writers like Tobias Wolff and Ann Beattie came to terms with this, I'm sure, long before making the move online. But for those of us who labored in considerably greater obscurity, publishing in mid-level print journals provided the advantage of a certain control over who read our work and when.
I started thinking about this when I read two posts in a forum I frequent. One was a writer who had published a story in a small journal that was then picked up for BASS. The other had a story published in a less well-known online publication. Both had proudly told friends and family about the publication but due to some foul language and sex scenes were a little uncomfortable with certain people reading them. Ironically, the writer with the story in BASS probably had the least to worry about.
Outside of my writer friends, very few people I know have ever heard of BASS. Of those who have, even fewer read it, and the handful who might politely express an interest in reading my story are not looking to purchase the entire anthology. I'd have no intention of lending out a precious contributor's copy to someone who probably wouldn't read it much less return it. So publication of my work in BASS (were hell ever to actually freeze over) would be a nice little credit that caused very little discomfort.
On the other hand, if I brag to my friends about the story just published online, they don't even need to know in what zine. Sitting around bored at work one day they could simply Google my name and there it would be along with other writing I may not have mentioned like the post supporting socialized medicine I'd hoped my boss at the insurance company would never see.
Which brings up another point about publishing online. That can holds a lot of worms.
With much of my work published or re-published online, this is something I struggle with regularly. When it comes to family, I'm very picky about what I want them to read. My stories are rarely even close to autobiographical, but my Mom would grill me on every infidelity or depressed housewife. Not to mention posts that hit closer to home like difficult aging parents.
In the larger world, I also like to compartmentalize my writing. There are those I want to read and know all my work. There are those I would like to know about some things but not others, and there are those I prefer not to tell at all. Like the people who think all "real" writers publish books.
I remain pretty safe with that last group since people rarely Google my name for no reason (though it has happened). It's the first two and the family where it gets dicy. At the same time my editing self can always tell when a writer is holding back––not going somewhere so as not to expose a nerve that could set off a family conflagration. Those pieces definitely suffer for it.
To a certain extent writing has always been the equivalent of exposing yourself in public. Only in print you could limit it to some cleavage or maybe a dorsal view. Online you are bare-a--ed naked, and in front of the entire world.
Writers like Tobias Wolff and Ann Beattie came to terms with this, I'm sure, long before making the move online. But for those of us who labored in considerably greater obscurity, publishing in mid-level print journals provided the advantage of a certain control over who read our work and when.
I started thinking about this when I read two posts in a forum I frequent. One was a writer who had published a story in a small journal that was then picked up for BASS. The other had a story published in a less well-known online publication. Both had proudly told friends and family about the publication but due to some foul language and sex scenes were a little uncomfortable with certain people reading them. Ironically, the writer with the story in BASS probably had the least to worry about.
Outside of my writer friends, very few people I know have ever heard of BASS. Of those who have, even fewer read it, and the handful who might politely express an interest in reading my story are not looking to purchase the entire anthology. I'd have no intention of lending out a precious contributor's copy to someone who probably wouldn't read it much less return it. So publication of my work in BASS (were hell ever to actually freeze over) would be a nice little credit that caused very little discomfort.
On the other hand, if I brag to my friends about the story just published online, they don't even need to know in what zine. Sitting around bored at work one day they could simply Google my name and there it would be along with other writing I may not have mentioned like the post supporting socialized medicine I'd hoped my boss at the insurance company would never see.
Which brings up another point about publishing online. That can holds a lot of worms.
With much of my work published or re-published online, this is something I struggle with regularly. When it comes to family, I'm very picky about what I want them to read. My stories are rarely even close to autobiographical, but my Mom would grill me on every infidelity or depressed housewife. Not to mention posts that hit closer to home like difficult aging parents.
In the larger world, I also like to compartmentalize my writing. There are those I want to read and know all my work. There are those I would like to know about some things but not others, and there are those I prefer not to tell at all. Like the people who think all "real" writers publish books.
I remain pretty safe with that last group since people rarely Google my name for no reason (though it has happened). It's the first two and the family where it gets dicy. At the same time my editing self can always tell when a writer is holding back––not going somewhere so as not to expose a nerve that could set off a family conflagration. Those pieces definitely suffer for it.
To a certain extent writing has always been the equivalent of exposing yourself in public. Only in print you could limit it to some cleavage or maybe a dorsal view. Online you are bare-a--ed naked, and in front of the entire world.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Getting to Know Us: Expanding a Great Idea
My friend and fellow blogger, Kat Magendie, had a great idea. She's going to make Saturday a "Getting to Know Us Day" on her blog. She will introduce her blog followers to the bloggers she follows. I thought it was such a great idea, I'd join in. Only rather than do it the same day, I'll be doing mine on Sunday.
Sooo, I thought it only fitting that the first blogger I introduce would be Kat herself. However, since I met both Kat and Angie Ledbetter when I was Co-Managing Editor at The Rose & Thorn (where the two of them are now sharing the Co-Managing Editor position), and since, like "love and marriage" or maybe more appropriately Abbott and Costello, I can't think of one without the other, I figured I'd introduce them both at the same time.
Kat's blog is Tender Graces named after her novel that will be released by Belle Books later this spring. Kat is a great writer and editor, and a very hard worker. She's one of those gals who can't say no, which is why she does so much for The Rose & Thorn in addition to her own writing, editing and blogging.
Angie is the author of Seeds of Faith and her blog, Gumbo Writer, can only be described in her own words.
Both of these blogs are fun and interactive, like the ladies who author them. Stop by and visit them often. I do.
Sooo, I thought it only fitting that the first blogger I introduce would be Kat herself. However, since I met both Kat and Angie Ledbetter when I was Co-Managing Editor at The Rose & Thorn (where the two of them are now sharing the Co-Managing Editor position), and since, like "love and marriage" or maybe more appropriately Abbott and Costello, I can't think of one without the other, I figured I'd introduce them both at the same time.
Kat's blog is Tender Graces named after her novel that will be released by Belle Books later this spring. Kat is a great writer and editor, and a very hard worker. She's one of those gals who can't say no, which is why she does so much for The Rose & Thorn in addition to her own writing, editing and blogging.
Angie is the author of Seeds of Faith and her blog, Gumbo Writer, can only be described in her own words.
Thoughts on one crazy life with three teens, a new puppy, writing, editing, taking care of family, cooking, politically incorrect stuff, trivia, laughter and whatever else comes up. ~~ Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you have time! Huggage, Gumbo Writer.
Both of these blogs are fun and interactive, like the ladies who author them. Stop by and visit them often. I do.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Submitting Your Work: The Company You Keep
The slogan for New York Life Insurance is "The company you keep." In a lot of ways that slogan also applies to the publications where writers get published. The best company, of course, is the top tier journals that regularly appear in Best American Short Stories or the Pushcart or O.Henry prize anthologies, but new writers have more of a chance when they arent' competing with Joyce Carol Oates or Rick Bass. At the same time, just getting published––anywhere––isn't good enough. Having your work appear in the wrong company can end up to be more of a detriment than a credit, especially if that publication folds in very short order.
This is an especial concern when submitting to zines. The good news is that online publications are no longer automatically considered second class by print editors. With many print publications moving partially or totally online and other new online publications being created that pay well and attract big names, the playing field for online vs print is practically leveled. However, with zines continuing to be relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, writers still need to beware of fly-by-night publications likely to close down after the first few issues or those that simply aren't selective enough to be taken seriously.
Here are some things to look for when deciding whether a zine would make a worthwhile addition to your publishing credits.
This is an especial concern when submitting to zines. The good news is that online publications are no longer automatically considered second class by print editors. With many print publications moving partially or totally online and other new online publications being created that pay well and attract big names, the playing field for online vs print is practically leveled. However, with zines continuing to be relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, writers still need to beware of fly-by-night publications likely to close down after the first few issues or those that simply aren't selective enough to be taken seriously.
Here are some things to look for when deciding whether a zine would make a worthwhile addition to your publishing credits.
- Appearance: Does the website look professional or does it look more like someone's blog? Does each piece have its own page or is work simply posted one after another? Does the site have its own distinctive look or does it appear to be just a standard template? A standard template doesn't, in and of itself, indicate a non-professional publication, but it could imply that editors aren't willing to put much time and effort into it. Even a publication that has not yet produced a first issue should have a good, professional look to the website showing guidelines and some information about the zine's philosophy and staff and not solicit simply through e-mails or forums.
- Editing: Does published work contain a lot of typos, spelling, or grammatical errors? Certainly small mistakes can slip through in the best publications, but if most pieces contain even just a few errors or if one piece contains several, it can mean the editors either aren't serious about what they do or don't themselves know any better. Either way this is likely to make a bad impression on other editors checking your credits.
- Frequency of publication: Does the zine regularly publish on schedule? Zines can be monthly, quarterly, biannual, or even annual. There is often a variation of a few days to a few weeks from issue to issue, but if a zine doesn't specifically note the frequency of publication, i.e. the next issue will come out whenever it's ready, or if they describe themselves as quarterly but often go four or five months between issues, that should definitely raise a red flag. You could end up waiting ages to see an accepted story in print or the publication could be defunct in a very short time.
- Writer bios: Being open to new writers shouldn't mean being open to any writer, and while selective publications that publish only beginners, like the old Beginnings, can be ego boosters for new writers, eventually your work has to appear alongside writers with previous credits if you want to be taken seriously. This does not necessarily mean publications where experienced writers are given a leg up. Of the two publications I have worked with recently The Rose & Thorn essentially has no slush pile and Sotto Voce has an anonymous review process where reviewers see neither the writer's name nor any bio when rating a submission. There was a time––and I know because I was there–-when the zines open to "new and emerging writers" received the majority of their submissions from the "new" while the "emerging" favored print. Those, like R&T, that established themselves over the years, eventually started attracting writers with solid credentials and now even new publications like Sotto Voce can be extremely selective. So these days writers who want valuable credits can and should look for zines that publish a mix of first-timers and those with some good credits in their bios.
- The Company: Finally, the biggest determining factor when considering where to submit your work is a very subjective one. Would you be proud, or at least content, to have your work appear beside the other pieces in that publication? If the work in a certain zine seems amateur to you or you don't care for the style––maybe you find the stories too graphic or gory––then that credit would probably appear the same to an editor of a journal in which you aspire to be published one day. There's never any point in choosing an easy acceptance over good quality.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Personal Essay: Being Too Impersonal
In December I blogged about the Personal Essay: Me, Myself, and I where I talked about how an essay can be too personal, so that it doesn't resonate with readers. But a Personal Essay can be too impersonal as well. That's not flip-flopping. It's a fine line.
To demonstrate how to keep the personal essay from drifting into the impersonal I've again chosen examples of essays I accepted while working with The Rose & Thorn so I can explain just what about them worked for me.
The op-ed piece
Some people confuse the personal essay with an op-ed piece better suited to your local newspaper. These are pieces that express an opinion, usually on politics, but it could be other things as well. Some of them are actually excellent pieces of persuasive writing. Some are just angry. In either case they aren't really appropriate for a literary journal.
That doesn't mean the essay can't cover controversial topics. In Inside the Glass Room, author Kristina Marie Darling tackles different religious views. She expresses the differences in terms of a family split. Her father and brother have turned to an Evangelical religion that she and her mother are uncomfortable with. The art of the piece is that nowhere does Darling actually take a stand. She doesn't condemn her father's and brother's religious fervor. What she expresses is her own discomfort with it, so that even someone who doesn't feel as she does, could probably read this piece without feeling offended. To some that may sound "mushy," but the personal essay is not an editorial. The point is to touch people in a special way, not force them into their corners.
The biography
Many wonderful essays are written about or in honor of a special person in the author's life. Unfortunately, inexperienced writers sometimes confuse this with a biography where they tell us all the details of a person's life but fail to show us why it matters.
Echoes of War by Drew McQuade is a homage to the author's grandfather who fought in WWI by the author who was a Vietnam War protester. Notice that the essay does not begin with the grandfather, Joe Little. Instead, the first line sets us up for the irony of the piece, that a war protester could have such great respect for his grandfather and others who sacrificed for their country.
A little inside info here may explain this a little more clearly. McQuade's original submission was entitled "Joe Little" due to the author's concern that "Echoes of War" had already been used. (FYI titles cannot be copyrighted and are often duplicated.) I didn't like the "Joe Little" title because the essay was about more than just that person as every essay of this type should be.
The Newspaper Article
Recently I reviewed an essay that was supposed to be about the effects of an auto accident on the survivors, but really the essay was about the accident. It started with the accident. That's not necessarily a bad thing especially as the author did a great job of evoking the emotions of the moment. However, she went on to relay, minute by minute, everything that happened in the immediate aftermath as well. Waiting for the police and ambulance to arrive, answering the the policeman's questions, watching the victims being loaded into the ambulance. It was only toward the very end that we learned about the long-lasting effects this accident had on the survivors, and by then it was too late to draw the reader in.
In this case I'm going to repeat an example I used in my last blog on essays, Water Line by Rusty Van Reeves. The essay is about the author setting his life on a new track after being paralyzed from the chest down. Unlike the submission I mentioned above, this essay does not start with the accident. It starts with the day the author reached his epiphany, then goes backwards in time to cover the painful moments that led to it. However, even this is only summarized, giving us just what we need to know without a day by day or even year by year rehash of the previous four years. From the first line the author tells us why he thinks we need to know his story, and because of that we want to learn more.
Balancing on that fine line between the personal and impersonal can be difficult, but as these essays demonstrate it can be done.
To demonstrate how to keep the personal essay from drifting into the impersonal I've again chosen examples of essays I accepted while working with The Rose & Thorn so I can explain just what about them worked for me.
The op-ed piece
Some people confuse the personal essay with an op-ed piece better suited to your local newspaper. These are pieces that express an opinion, usually on politics, but it could be other things as well. Some of them are actually excellent pieces of persuasive writing. Some are just angry. In either case they aren't really appropriate for a literary journal.
That doesn't mean the essay can't cover controversial topics. In Inside the Glass Room, author Kristina Marie Darling tackles different religious views. She expresses the differences in terms of a family split. Her father and brother have turned to an Evangelical religion that she and her mother are uncomfortable with. The art of the piece is that nowhere does Darling actually take a stand. She doesn't condemn her father's and brother's religious fervor. What she expresses is her own discomfort with it, so that even someone who doesn't feel as she does, could probably read this piece without feeling offended. To some that may sound "mushy," but the personal essay is not an editorial. The point is to touch people in a special way, not force them into their corners.
The biography
Many wonderful essays are written about or in honor of a special person in the author's life. Unfortunately, inexperienced writers sometimes confuse this with a biography where they tell us all the details of a person's life but fail to show us why it matters.
Echoes of War by Drew McQuade is a homage to the author's grandfather who fought in WWI by the author who was a Vietnam War protester. Notice that the essay does not begin with the grandfather, Joe Little. Instead, the first line sets us up for the irony of the piece, that a war protester could have such great respect for his grandfather and others who sacrificed for their country.
A little inside info here may explain this a little more clearly. McQuade's original submission was entitled "Joe Little" due to the author's concern that "Echoes of War" had already been used. (FYI titles cannot be copyrighted and are often duplicated.) I didn't like the "Joe Little" title because the essay was about more than just that person as every essay of this type should be.
The Newspaper Article
Recently I reviewed an essay that was supposed to be about the effects of an auto accident on the survivors, but really the essay was about the accident. It started with the accident. That's not necessarily a bad thing especially as the author did a great job of evoking the emotions of the moment. However, she went on to relay, minute by minute, everything that happened in the immediate aftermath as well. Waiting for the police and ambulance to arrive, answering the the policeman's questions, watching the victims being loaded into the ambulance. It was only toward the very end that we learned about the long-lasting effects this accident had on the survivors, and by then it was too late to draw the reader in.
In this case I'm going to repeat an example I used in my last blog on essays, Water Line by Rusty Van Reeves. The essay is about the author setting his life on a new track after being paralyzed from the chest down. Unlike the submission I mentioned above, this essay does not start with the accident. It starts with the day the author reached his epiphany, then goes backwards in time to cover the painful moments that led to it. However, even this is only summarized, giving us just what we need to know without a day by day or even year by year rehash of the previous four years. From the first line the author tells us why he thinks we need to know his story, and because of that we want to learn more.
Balancing on that fine line between the personal and impersonal can be difficult, but as these essays demonstrate it can be done.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Reading and Books
Here's an interesting op-ed from Sunday's Inquirer on "Reasons to Read." Problem is, the author, like many others, confuses the issue of reading with the issue of reading books. She starts by deriding the Kindle, then goes on to note how "the electronic world stole [her] patience to read books in recent years." When the author's 77-year-old mother convinces her that reading a book before bed would be more relaxing she asks her mother why "reading" is still important and the mother goes into a litany of reasons with which I would generally agree. But all of those reasons are reasons to read, not necessarily reasons to read words in books as opposed to on a device like a laptop or Kindle.
Doris Lessing similarly confused the two issues when she condemned the Internet in her Nobel acceptance speech. It also crops up in discussions on the efficacy of the bookstore model for selling books and sentimental attachments to the independent bookstore.
This issue of being wedded to print, especially in the form of books, but also journals, magazines and newspapers does not divide along age lines either. I know many Boomers who, like me, sing the praises of Internet publishing, while many younger writers lament the demise of print.
So far I have not purchased a Kindle. Not because I am morally or even aesthetically opposed to doing my reading on a modern device, but because, like the iPhone, I know the technology will improve along with the price, and, most likely, later devices will address even issues of hand-held comfort. Right now I still find a book the most comfortable reading device to use when I'm lying in bed, which is where I do most of my reading. Then again, just a year ago I couldn't imagine reading my daily newspaper on my laptop either. However, an erratic delivery schedule that had me skidding down our icy lane on cold winter mornings only to find the paper hadn't arrived yet, not to mention the reams of ads that duplicated what I found in my mailbox all week long, and the many sections, like classifieds and real estate I don't even read, finally caused me to seriously consider the switch. The last tether to my office was the cable and with Wifi I now peruse my laptop just as conveniently over my morning coffee, and manage to check out other papers as well if what is in my own doesn't interest me.
Up till now what I've discussed are merely matters of comfort and preference, but I have other issues with these folks who insist on holding a finger in the dam of online and electronic publishing. The problem I see is that those who decry the loss of interest in reading among the up-and-coming generation, shoot themselves in the foot by insisting that reading is synonymous with books. I don't have statistics, but it is my opinion that the draw of the newest electronic "gadget" is, in many ways, also a draw back to reading for many individuals both my age and younger.
Take literary journals. It is no secret that for the past couple of decades, even the best-known journals have been struggling to continue in print, while mainstays like The Atlantic and The New Yorker have drastically cut back on the fiction and poetry they publish. Yet online publications receive tens of thousands of visits per month. I don't have statistics to prove it, but going by my experience I would say that more people under 30 are reading short fiction and poetry online than have read the same in print in the last 20 years or so, and maybe more than ever before.
As with any major change, there will be lots of people who drag their feet, insisting that the old way is better, and as with any change there will be ways in which that is true. On the other hand, it may be time to realize that the days of book publishing, as we know it––that is, several pages between covers sitting on a shelf waiting to be purchased–– are nearly over. Just like the printing press provided a new a modern way to disseminate information to the masses, so the Internet and various hand-held devices may be what brings the masses back to an interest in reading.
So, on the issue of developing new technology, I recommend this video from uTube. A little tongue-in-cheek, but you get the point.
Doris Lessing similarly confused the two issues when she condemned the Internet in her Nobel acceptance speech. It also crops up in discussions on the efficacy of the bookstore model for selling books and sentimental attachments to the independent bookstore.
This issue of being wedded to print, especially in the form of books, but also journals, magazines and newspapers does not divide along age lines either. I know many Boomers who, like me, sing the praises of Internet publishing, while many younger writers lament the demise of print.
So far I have not purchased a Kindle. Not because I am morally or even aesthetically opposed to doing my reading on a modern device, but because, like the iPhone, I know the technology will improve along with the price, and, most likely, later devices will address even issues of hand-held comfort. Right now I still find a book the most comfortable reading device to use when I'm lying in bed, which is where I do most of my reading. Then again, just a year ago I couldn't imagine reading my daily newspaper on my laptop either. However, an erratic delivery schedule that had me skidding down our icy lane on cold winter mornings only to find the paper hadn't arrived yet, not to mention the reams of ads that duplicated what I found in my mailbox all week long, and the many sections, like classifieds and real estate I don't even read, finally caused me to seriously consider the switch. The last tether to my office was the cable and with Wifi I now peruse my laptop just as conveniently over my morning coffee, and manage to check out other papers as well if what is in my own doesn't interest me.
Up till now what I've discussed are merely matters of comfort and preference, but I have other issues with these folks who insist on holding a finger in the dam of online and electronic publishing. The problem I see is that those who decry the loss of interest in reading among the up-and-coming generation, shoot themselves in the foot by insisting that reading is synonymous with books. I don't have statistics, but it is my opinion that the draw of the newest electronic "gadget" is, in many ways, also a draw back to reading for many individuals both my age and younger.
Take literary journals. It is no secret that for the past couple of decades, even the best-known journals have been struggling to continue in print, while mainstays like The Atlantic and The New Yorker have drastically cut back on the fiction and poetry they publish. Yet online publications receive tens of thousands of visits per month. I don't have statistics to prove it, but going by my experience I would say that more people under 30 are reading short fiction and poetry online than have read the same in print in the last 20 years or so, and maybe more than ever before.
As with any major change, there will be lots of people who drag their feet, insisting that the old way is better, and as with any change there will be ways in which that is true. On the other hand, it may be time to realize that the days of book publishing, as we know it––that is, several pages between covers sitting on a shelf waiting to be purchased–– are nearly over. Just like the printing press provided a new a modern way to disseminate information to the masses, so the Internet and various hand-held devices may be what brings the masses back to an interest in reading.
So, on the issue of developing new technology, I recommend this video from uTube. A little tongue-in-cheek, but you get the point.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Paying To Be Read, Cont'd
I posted a reference in the Poets & Writers Speakeasy Forum to my recent blog Narrative: Paying To Be Read. It got quite a discussion going. (That's not hard over there, and I did wish more people would come over and cast a vote.) You can check it out yourself, but a majority of the posters were like my writer friend Kat, who kindly left a comment on my post, saying she strongly opposed submission fees. Though most of the P&W posts were more vehement in style.
At first I simply posed the question of what members thought about the Narrative model of charging for submissions. I must admit, I became increasingly frustrated as more and more posters inveighed against this model, but, no matter how many different ways I posed the question, didn't even attempt to propose another model that would provide enough income for better publications to continue online. Worse, as seems to be commonplace in our current culture, posters took strong stands on how things "should" and "shouldn't" be without bothering to find out why they are the way they are.
My point in continuing this line of posting is not to be combative. We are at an important crossroads when it comes to writing and publishing with more and more of it moving to the Internet. So it would seem to me that we need to come up with some model that turns a profit or at least makes enough to pay contributors, unless we want creative writing to become solely the purview of the wealthy and "news reporting" the purview of opinionated bloggers.
I've been working with online publications in one capacity or another for nearly ten years. That is, nearly since their inception, and here are some things I've learned that need to be taken into consideration when examining this problem.
The Information Super Highway
What has drawn more and more people to the Internet is the possibility of getting information and exchanging ideas for free. This is such a part of the Internet culture that for a long time users felt entitled to download copyrighted materials like music and videos at no cost. While the government clamped down on that, the culture of getting things for free hasn't gone away. In fact, many of those who provide information online are dedicated to keeping it free, like Duotrope's Digest. Others, like newspapers, magazines, and literary journals, that might find it useful to charge reasonable subscription fees soon realize that the model simply doesn't work on the net. If your site isn't free, readers will find another one that is. Even venerable print journals like The Kenyon Review do not charge for their online version, nor do they restrict access to print subscribers.
Online Publications Can't Pay or Pay Very Little
The consequence is that online publications were among the first to publish work without payment. In the early days, as I noted in my first post on this issue, online publications received a lot of flack for this and, consequently, appealed to only "new and emerging writers"––read, writers who hadn't been published anywhere else. Ironically, several online publications now pay token fees––$25 or less––while more and more print journals pay nothing at all.
Little or no payment, whether by an online or print publication, has led to a two-tiered system where the big names gravitate to the big pay, filling the slots and making it tougher for new writers to break in. Some, like the New Yorker, don't even accept unsolicited or un-agented fiction. So unknown writers often remain unknown with little chance of breaking into the big-time, publishing only in online or small independent journals that may or may not even count as a rung on the ladder and from which they will never, ever make a career, sometimes despite thousands of dollars spent on workshops and MFAs.
Online Advertising Doesn't Work
Or maybe it works too well. The old media sold advertising based on the number of viewers/listeners/readers, but beyond primitive surveys it was difficult to pinpoint just how many customers at Macy's pre-Christmas sale read about it in the Main Street Observer. Internet advertising is based on click-throughs. I don't have media-wide statistics, but I can tell you that, whether Amazon Associates or AdSense, no online publication I worked with ever made more than pennies per month from these ads. Anecdotally, most people I know see these ads as spam machines and have learned to block them from their peripheral vision.
Let me point out that I am not talking here about anyone walking off with big profits, as one commenter on P&W sees it. Most of these journals are nonprofits and usually the majority of staff, if not the entire staff, work for free. Many Managing Edtiors even fund journals themselves, paying out hundreds of dollars for each issue in order to provide at least some small payment to writers.
So let me pose the question a little differently this time. Now that you know what doesn't work and why, any ideas on what could work? After many years of pondering this issue, I continue to come up dry. So let me know what you think.
At first I simply posed the question of what members thought about the Narrative model of charging for submissions. I must admit, I became increasingly frustrated as more and more posters inveighed against this model, but, no matter how many different ways I posed the question, didn't even attempt to propose another model that would provide enough income for better publications to continue online. Worse, as seems to be commonplace in our current culture, posters took strong stands on how things "should" and "shouldn't" be without bothering to find out why they are the way they are.
My point in continuing this line of posting is not to be combative. We are at an important crossroads when it comes to writing and publishing with more and more of it moving to the Internet. So it would seem to me that we need to come up with some model that turns a profit or at least makes enough to pay contributors, unless we want creative writing to become solely the purview of the wealthy and "news reporting" the purview of opinionated bloggers.
I've been working with online publications in one capacity or another for nearly ten years. That is, nearly since their inception, and here are some things I've learned that need to be taken into consideration when examining this problem.
The Information Super Highway
What has drawn more and more people to the Internet is the possibility of getting information and exchanging ideas for free. This is such a part of the Internet culture that for a long time users felt entitled to download copyrighted materials like music and videos at no cost. While the government clamped down on that, the culture of getting things for free hasn't gone away. In fact, many of those who provide information online are dedicated to keeping it free, like Duotrope's Digest. Others, like newspapers, magazines, and literary journals, that might find it useful to charge reasonable subscription fees soon realize that the model simply doesn't work on the net. If your site isn't free, readers will find another one that is. Even venerable print journals like The Kenyon Review do not charge for their online version, nor do they restrict access to print subscribers.
Online Publications Can't Pay or Pay Very Little
The consequence is that online publications were among the first to publish work without payment. In the early days, as I noted in my first post on this issue, online publications received a lot of flack for this and, consequently, appealed to only "new and emerging writers"––read, writers who hadn't been published anywhere else. Ironically, several online publications now pay token fees––$25 or less––while more and more print journals pay nothing at all.
Little or no payment, whether by an online or print publication, has led to a two-tiered system where the big names gravitate to the big pay, filling the slots and making it tougher for new writers to break in. Some, like the New Yorker, don't even accept unsolicited or un-agented fiction. So unknown writers often remain unknown with little chance of breaking into the big-time, publishing only in online or small independent journals that may or may not even count as a rung on the ladder and from which they will never, ever make a career, sometimes despite thousands of dollars spent on workshops and MFAs.
Online Advertising Doesn't Work
Or maybe it works too well. The old media sold advertising based on the number of viewers/listeners/readers, but beyond primitive surveys it was difficult to pinpoint just how many customers at Macy's pre-Christmas sale read about it in the Main Street Observer. Internet advertising is based on click-throughs. I don't have media-wide statistics, but I can tell you that, whether Amazon Associates or AdSense, no online publication I worked with ever made more than pennies per month from these ads. Anecdotally, most people I know see these ads as spam machines and have learned to block them from their peripheral vision.
Let me point out that I am not talking here about anyone walking off with big profits, as one commenter on P&W sees it. Most of these journals are nonprofits and usually the majority of staff, if not the entire staff, work for free. Many Managing Edtiors even fund journals themselves, paying out hundreds of dollars for each issue in order to provide at least some small payment to writers.
So let me pose the question a little differently this time. Now that you know what doesn't work and why, any ideas on what could work? After many years of pondering this issue, I continue to come up dry. So let me know what you think.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Narrative Magazine: Paying to Be Read
Narrative Magazine has taken an interesting and novel approach to publishing. The magazine is free to readers. They pay a healthy sum to published writers, but they charge a reading fee for each submission––$20 for a short story and $10 for five poems.
Not so long ago when I first began submitting, experienced writers were scandalized at the proliferation of publications––online and small print start-ups–-that didn't pay. Now paying markets are more the exception than the rule, and online publications are more likely to pay than print, though payment is usually a "token" of $25 or less. Add to this that many novelists published by the standard houses often put more money into marketing their work than they get out of it. You may say that paying to have your work read was the obvious next step.
Narrative is hardly a small start-up publication. No less a writer than Rick Bass chose to serialize his novel in the online magazine. For writers like Bass and Oates and Lahiri, for whom publication is pretty much guaranteed, $20 amounts to a very small charitable donation to keep literary magazines alive. But for the rest of us, it's like playing the slots. So, is it fair? And more important, is it the model for the future?
I'm on my third submission to Narrative, but one was a contest and just about every contest charges a reading fee. Plus the fee included a three-month subscription to Backstage––a $50 value. So for these purposes, let's say I've spent $40 on submitting and stand to receive $150 if my "Story of the Week" is accepted. That would put me $110 in the black for that particular publication, though for my entire writing year I would still be far in the red.
As the costs of being a writer go, the return value for submitting to Narrative is at least calculable. Even better than slots or the lottery, when I pays my money I know exactly how much I stand to gain if I "win." Based on that I can make a quantifiable decision that works for me, and I've decided on two submissions per year. When I compare that with my other expenses––conferences, workshops, writing magazines––with no quantifiable return, it begins to look a lot better.
More apropos to the topic is the "several sample issues" you are encouraged to read before submitting to any literary publication. You can read everything in Narrative for free, so in a sense, the reading fee covers what those other magazines make on samples. Of course, more and more print journals, even if they don't maintain an online counterpart, make sample work available online. As a writer I see this as only fair, since many of these journals don't pay and sample issues can add up to hundreds of dollars per year. However, what will happen to these journals if writers don't have to buy them? I'd venture to say prospective submitters make up the lion's share of most literary journals' readers.
In a world where literary publications just can't make money and more people are reading online and expecting it to remain free, something is going to have to give in order for these publications––online or print––to survive. For my part, I think I'd rather make an upfront payment on the chance of making several times that if my work is published than being nickeled and dimed with no chance of payment and, eventually, fewer and fewer places to submit my work.
What do you think? Cast your vote in the poll.
Not so long ago when I first began submitting, experienced writers were scandalized at the proliferation of publications––online and small print start-ups–-that didn't pay. Now paying markets are more the exception than the rule, and online publications are more likely to pay than print, though payment is usually a "token" of $25 or less. Add to this that many novelists published by the standard houses often put more money into marketing their work than they get out of it. You may say that paying to have your work read was the obvious next step.
Narrative is hardly a small start-up publication. No less a writer than Rick Bass chose to serialize his novel in the online magazine. For writers like Bass and Oates and Lahiri, for whom publication is pretty much guaranteed, $20 amounts to a very small charitable donation to keep literary magazines alive. But for the rest of us, it's like playing the slots. So, is it fair? And more important, is it the model for the future?
I'm on my third submission to Narrative, but one was a contest and just about every contest charges a reading fee. Plus the fee included a three-month subscription to Backstage––a $50 value. So for these purposes, let's say I've spent $40 on submitting and stand to receive $150 if my "Story of the Week" is accepted. That would put me $110 in the black for that particular publication, though for my entire writing year I would still be far in the red.
As the costs of being a writer go, the return value for submitting to Narrative is at least calculable. Even better than slots or the lottery, when I pays my money I know exactly how much I stand to gain if I "win." Based on that I can make a quantifiable decision that works for me, and I've decided on two submissions per year. When I compare that with my other expenses––conferences, workshops, writing magazines––with no quantifiable return, it begins to look a lot better.
More apropos to the topic is the "several sample issues" you are encouraged to read before submitting to any literary publication. You can read everything in Narrative for free, so in a sense, the reading fee covers what those other magazines make on samples. Of course, more and more print journals, even if they don't maintain an online counterpart, make sample work available online. As a writer I see this as only fair, since many of these journals don't pay and sample issues can add up to hundreds of dollars per year. However, what will happen to these journals if writers don't have to buy them? I'd venture to say prospective submitters make up the lion's share of most literary journals' readers.
In a world where literary publications just can't make money and more people are reading online and expecting it to remain free, something is going to have to give in order for these publications––online or print––to survive. For my part, I think I'd rather make an upfront payment on the chance of making several times that if my work is published than being nickeled and dimed with no chance of payment and, eventually, fewer and fewer places to submit my work.
What do you think? Cast your vote in the poll.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Online Publishing: It's a No-Brainer, or It Should Be
Oy, I thought the days of having to pound out all the good reasons for publishing online were over. I figured it was a no-brainer until I came across a recent post in a forum I frequent. The poster was concerned that The Kenyon Review now considers all submissions for both the print version and KR Online. If accepted, she didn't want her work appearing in the online version.
On the plus side, things have reached the point where even in this forum where many members have MFAs and publish with Knopf, I wasn't the only one to react with, "whuh?" But for those of you who still doubt whether being published online is as good as print, let me go through it one more time.
Prestige
Many early online publications were, and remain, open to new writers. In the beginning this could mean sites that "published" (really just posted) whatever came in. Even those attempting to be more selective were only as good as the submissions they received. But those that survived now often receive as many or more submissions as print publications. Publications like The Rose & Thorn and Sotto Voce, the two I've been associated with most recently, are able to publish only a small percentage of the work they receive. They remain a venue for new writers to break in, but new doesn't mean bad. It simply means writers who need to build some credits, and both these publications now receive submissions from writers who have quite a few credits as well. And now we have many top-tier print publications lending their cachet to online publishing.
Durability
In the early days it wasn't unusual for someone, with best of intentions, to set up a site and then lose interest or time to maintain it. The unlucky few they "published" (actually simply posted) had nothing to show for it. That situation is not the standard anymore, and many online publications have been around for years. Furthermore, top-tier publications like Kenyon are more likely to move entirely to online rather than fold altogether.
Still, it's important to get a feel for the durability of any new publication before you submit. Many upstart print publicatons fold too, and even more venerable ones can succomb to the cost of print. My first publication was in Beginnings. When I learned a few weeks ago that they had apparently stopped publishing, I was certainly glad that "Dora's Memoir" had been re-printed in The Rose & Thorn.
Accessibility
So far I've listed reasons why online is as good as print, but there are also reasons why it is actually better. First, by its very nature, the Internet reaches a wider audience. Reading your work is not limited to those who subscribe to a print journal or the people willing to go out and buy it. Further, while mailing journals overseas is expensive, Internet publications can be easily accessed all over the world.
Second, your work is available longer. Online publications can be archived for months and even years. Also, online publications are available in a Google Search. So someone can Google your name and easily read all the work you've published online going back several years.
Third, you can receive feedback. If you or the publication chooses to include your e-mail address, readers will often contact you about your work. Writers can also sign up for Google Alerts to receive notification any time the writer's name or the story are mentioned online.
Fourth, with online publications you can do more than just list your published work on your webpage; you can link to it so anyone can see the quality of your writing.
One Drawback
There is one drawback to publishing online. Unlike print, if the publication does go belly-up, or if there is some technical problem and the archives are lost, your work can disappear. That's why I always print out any of my work that appears online and make sure that the name of the publication and the date show up somewhere on my hardcopy. I've yet to have that occur, but if it does, I'm ready, and, if I also keep a copy in my Word files, I can easily set up a new link from my webpage.
Is there anyone out there who still thinks online publishing is second-class? If so, I give up.
On the plus side, things have reached the point where even in this forum where many members have MFAs and publish with Knopf, I wasn't the only one to react with, "whuh?" But for those of you who still doubt whether being published online is as good as print, let me go through it one more time.
Prestige
Many early online publications were, and remain, open to new writers. In the beginning this could mean sites that "published" (really just posted) whatever came in. Even those attempting to be more selective were only as good as the submissions they received. But those that survived now often receive as many or more submissions as print publications. Publications like The Rose & Thorn and Sotto Voce, the two I've been associated with most recently, are able to publish only a small percentage of the work they receive. They remain a venue for new writers to break in, but new doesn't mean bad. It simply means writers who need to build some credits, and both these publications now receive submissions from writers who have quite a few credits as well. And now we have many top-tier print publications lending their cachet to online publishing.
Durability
In the early days it wasn't unusual for someone, with best of intentions, to set up a site and then lose interest or time to maintain it. The unlucky few they "published" (actually simply posted) had nothing to show for it. That situation is not the standard anymore, and many online publications have been around for years. Furthermore, top-tier publications like Kenyon are more likely to move entirely to online rather than fold altogether.
Still, it's important to get a feel for the durability of any new publication before you submit. Many upstart print publicatons fold too, and even more venerable ones can succomb to the cost of print. My first publication was in Beginnings. When I learned a few weeks ago that they had apparently stopped publishing, I was certainly glad that "Dora's Memoir" had been re-printed in The Rose & Thorn.
Accessibility
So far I've listed reasons why online is as good as print, but there are also reasons why it is actually better. First, by its very nature, the Internet reaches a wider audience. Reading your work is not limited to those who subscribe to a print journal or the people willing to go out and buy it. Further, while mailing journals overseas is expensive, Internet publications can be easily accessed all over the world.
Second, your work is available longer. Online publications can be archived for months and even years. Also, online publications are available in a Google Search. So someone can Google your name and easily read all the work you've published online going back several years.
Third, you can receive feedback. If you or the publication chooses to include your e-mail address, readers will often contact you about your work. Writers can also sign up for Google Alerts to receive notification any time the writer's name or the story are mentioned online.
Fourth, with online publications you can do more than just list your published work on your webpage; you can link to it so anyone can see the quality of your writing.
One Drawback
There is one drawback to publishing online. Unlike print, if the publication does go belly-up, or if there is some technical problem and the archives are lost, your work can disappear. That's why I always print out any of my work that appears online and make sure that the name of the publication and the date show up somewhere on my hardcopy. I've yet to have that occur, but if it does, I'm ready, and, if I also keep a copy in my Word files, I can easily set up a new link from my webpage.
Is there anyone out there who still thinks online publishing is second-class? If so, I give up.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Craft of Writing: It's About Time
Much is written about the need for writers to outline every aspect of their characters, down to the breakfast cereal they prefer, even if it never shows up in the actual story. To a slightly lesser extent, setting is also emphasized, but, to my mind, not nearly enough attention is paid to the aspect of Time in our stories. Time comes into the writing in two ways: The period in which the story/novel is set and the time that elapses within the story. I feel very strongly that, just as with character and setting, writers need to know the details about Time, even if they are never explicitly set out in words.
Setting the Story
Broadly speaking, all stories take place in either the Past, Present, or Future, but this can be broken down even further. The Past can be historical fiction or a story that takes place within the writer's lifetime like Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees. The Future is most often associated with Science Fiction, but in Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty author Tim Sandlin takes us no more than 20 years hence when the Baby Boomer generation will be elderly. This was not a future of intergalactic travel and metallic underwear, but he did need to add a few touches to make it believable.
The majority of stories take place in a nondescript Present or immediate past (he says/he said). Even so, it's important for the writer to have some sense of the year, the season, even the day of the week. My story, "The Foundations of Churchill," is about a once-rural community that is being developed into an exurb of a major city. While this theme is being acted out in real-time across the country and the world, it soon became apparent that in order to ground my story in reality, I needed to decide exactly when it took place. Since I was writing about my own community, I set it back in the 80s, when many of the events it was based on actually occurred. It took a little extra effort working out details like the cars people would drive (SUVs were not nearly so ubiquitous so driving one implied upper middle-class status). I might have gotten away with some generic time period, but getting specific made it feel more real.
Elapsed Time
I'd say nothing screams amateur like unrealistic timing, but I've read published books, particularly thrillers, where the protagonist couldn't possibly have accomplished that much is so little time. Still, I happen to believe that the more parameters a writer places on her work, the more disciplined and well-crafted it will be. If your protagonist leaves home for the city at 10:00 PM, meets up with friends, visits three or four bars, and plays a game of pool, she'd better be returning home in the "wee small hours of the morning" and not sometime after midnight.
The same applies to non-linear stories, for instance, "circular" stories where something triggers a flashback and at the end, the protagonist remains in the same place (or only slightly advanced in place and time). In Fellow Travelers, a book I reviewed for Roses & Thorns, the entire novel, covering several decades of the protagonist's life, is told as a memory exercise while tying his tie––all 300+ pages. On the sublime end of that spectrum is "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, where the author masterfully slows down time to take us through the protagonist's past.
Follow Through
As with other aspects of a story, once you pick the time, there must be follow through. Say your story opens on Saturday, then make sure your protagonist is doing Saturday things. That is, he's not dressing for work unless he's a work-a-holic and he's not going to church, unless he's particularly pious. And it should go without saying––though sadly it can't––that you need to be careful about changing the day or making the next day Monday instead of Sunday. You'd be surprised at the number of sloppy submissions I've read where the writer didn't pick up on this glaring error.
If you add seasonal specifics, make sure to follow through with that too. In Joyce Carol Oates' "Gargoyle," the main character is driving at night in a wintery mix of snow and rain. At some point it changes to all snow, and the character slows her speed when her car begins to skid. Oates is a pro who realizes that, if the weather/season is to play a part in the story, the reader needs to be reminded throughout. Unfortunately, less professional writers might mention the season or the weather as a plot device then never mention it again.
Finally, of course, if your story is set in the past, make sure to get the details right.FDR going on TV to talk about the market crash is a pretty obvious flub to those of us of a certain age, but in these days of rapidly advancing technology it's easy to forget that as recently as the early 90s a character could not pull out a cell phone when her tire went flat or IM friends about meeting up later at a club. Luckily part of that advancing technology is the Internet. So, when in doubt, look it up.
It's about time.
Setting the Story
Broadly speaking, all stories take place in either the Past, Present, or Future, but this can be broken down even further. The Past can be historical fiction or a story that takes place within the writer's lifetime like Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees. The Future is most often associated with Science Fiction, but in Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty author Tim Sandlin takes us no more than 20 years hence when the Baby Boomer generation will be elderly. This was not a future of intergalactic travel and metallic underwear, but he did need to add a few touches to make it believable.
The majority of stories take place in a nondescript Present or immediate past (he says/he said). Even so, it's important for the writer to have some sense of the year, the season, even the day of the week. My story, "The Foundations of Churchill," is about a once-rural community that is being developed into an exurb of a major city. While this theme is being acted out in real-time across the country and the world, it soon became apparent that in order to ground my story in reality, I needed to decide exactly when it took place. Since I was writing about my own community, I set it back in the 80s, when many of the events it was based on actually occurred. It took a little extra effort working out details like the cars people would drive (SUVs were not nearly so ubiquitous so driving one implied upper middle-class status). I might have gotten away with some generic time period, but getting specific made it feel more real.
Elapsed Time
I'd say nothing screams amateur like unrealistic timing, but I've read published books, particularly thrillers, where the protagonist couldn't possibly have accomplished that much is so little time. Still, I happen to believe that the more parameters a writer places on her work, the more disciplined and well-crafted it will be. If your protagonist leaves home for the city at 10:00 PM, meets up with friends, visits three or four bars, and plays a game of pool, she'd better be returning home in the "wee small hours of the morning" and not sometime after midnight.
The same applies to non-linear stories, for instance, "circular" stories where something triggers a flashback and at the end, the protagonist remains in the same place (or only slightly advanced in place and time). In Fellow Travelers, a book I reviewed for Roses & Thorns, the entire novel, covering several decades of the protagonist's life, is told as a memory exercise while tying his tie––all 300+ pages. On the sublime end of that spectrum is "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, where the author masterfully slows down time to take us through the protagonist's past.
Follow Through
As with other aspects of a story, once you pick the time, there must be follow through. Say your story opens on Saturday, then make sure your protagonist is doing Saturday things. That is, he's not dressing for work unless he's a work-a-holic and he's not going to church, unless he's particularly pious. And it should go without saying––though sadly it can't––that you need to be careful about changing the day or making the next day Monday instead of Sunday. You'd be surprised at the number of sloppy submissions I've read where the writer didn't pick up on this glaring error.
If you add seasonal specifics, make sure to follow through with that too. In Joyce Carol Oates' "Gargoyle," the main character is driving at night in a wintery mix of snow and rain. At some point it changes to all snow, and the character slows her speed when her car begins to skid. Oates is a pro who realizes that, if the weather/season is to play a part in the story, the reader needs to be reminded throughout. Unfortunately, less professional writers might mention the season or the weather as a plot device then never mention it again.
Finally, of course, if your story is set in the past, make sure to get the details right.FDR going on TV to talk about the market crash is a pretty obvious flub to those of us of a certain age, but in these days of rapidly advancing technology it's easy to forget that as recently as the early 90s a character could not pull out a cell phone when her tire went flat or IM friends about meeting up later at a club. Luckily part of that advancing technology is the Internet. So, when in doubt, look it up.
It's about time.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Rejections, and Why They Aren't Nice
I'm and editor, but I'm a writer too, and I know how it feels to get those little slips in your SASE or a couple of lines in an e-mail dismissing your work. Sure there's usually a "thank you" or a "we appreciate," but over all it's a brush-off. No specific comments, no clue as to how far we got in the process. The most personal thing about it is the address label we stuck on the outside.
Why aren't more editors more helpful?
I could throw the time thing at you––the number of submissions so high we couldn't possibly comment on each one––but those first readers going through the slush pile actually could make a comment. The reason they don't has less to do with time and more to do with experience.
My editing background is with online publications, many of which do start out commenting, and many of which, eventually, put an end to the process. Here are some reasons why:
- Most submissions have far too many flaws. No one likes to hear that, but it's true. Most of what editors receive ranges from really bad to not bad. Notice that is "not bad" not good or really good. Anything falling along that range has more than one or two flaws, and asking for comments on more than one or two flaws amounts to asking for a free critique.
- Too many submitters mistake a kindly comment for an invitation to re-submit. When an editor offers you the opportunity to re-submit, it will say it clearly in the rejection, but desperate writers often look for any hope to cling to.
- Other submitters take it as an invitation to submit something else, soon and often.
- Some few submitters actually get testy and send back a reply refuting each comment word for word.
No everyone doesn't do this, but it's the old "bad apple" thing. Enough submitters do one of these things to make publications re-think their replies. One zine I worked with started out commenting on each submission and including a standard invitation to submit again. After a couple of years of the above they knocked off the comments and in another couple of years they knocked off the invitation to submit again, unless they really really meant it.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Wikipedia: Finding Your Way in a Wiki World
Generically speaking, Wiki is a piece of software that allows general users to create and edit webpage content. That is, not only can someone come along and add a post or comment, but they can edit the original to correct it. I'm regularly finding new Wikis, like the the NativeWiki I discovered a few months ago while researching another blog post. But by far the most popular and ubiquitous Wiki is, of course, Wikipedia, which for many has come to replace those venerable multi-volumed encyclopedias of my youth as well as online versions like Britannica.
Wikipedia, as the About page explains, "is written collaboratively by volunteers..." It goes on to explain, "visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge."[emphasis added] I'm honestly not sure what that qualifier "existing" means, and why that makes Average Joe any more qualified to write about it.
In the past year or so Wikipedia has risen to the top of the search engines for just about any topic. Even Googling Britannica brings it up just under the entry for the actual website (including a page which purports to catalog "mistakes and omissions" from the encyclopedia). This top billing has the psychological effect of implied authority. In fact, top billing has absolutely nothing to do with authority and everything to do with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). As someone who once worked for a site attempting to outdo Wikipedia, I know there are a variety of ways, like repetition and linking, to make a site rise above the competition, and none of these has anything whatsoever to do with accuracy.
The idea of information by plebiscite is alluring, especially to a gal like myself who gained, through self-study, as much or more knowledge of US government relations with Native Americans past and present as any PhD. Why shouldn't I be qualified to write an encyclopedia entry on the topic?
The problem is, you as the reader don't know what I know. That is, my entry could be pure fact or pure dribble, and if my entry is the first you've read on the subject, you have no way of determining that. Now the idea behind Wikipedia is that someone will come along, see that my entry is pure dribble (or that they just don't like my slant?) and edit it. Lucky you, if you stop by after the correction, but what if you stop by before? Or what if my entry was correct and someone makes it wrong? It all supposedly comes out in the wash, but your problem is knowing whether you came in on the rinse or the spin cycle.
Encyclopedias certainly aren't the end all and be all of information. As the Wikipedia entry points out, Britannica can get some things wrong too. (Though from what I saw they were of minor significance like the birth date in an actor's bio and his actual birth date.) But encyclopedias weren't meant to be the sole authority. Somewhere after fifth grade we all learned they should provide no more than a jumping-off point, providing "just the facts, ma'am."
As best I can tell, Wikipedia wants to appear as more than that. For fun I looked up the entry for Crazy Horse, a historical figure I've read quite a bit about. In fact, I've read just about everything cited and more. For his early life, the entry pretty much lays out the same story every biographer tells based on the original by Mari Sandoz, but when I read the entry under "Family," I immediately thought it read like some movie version. Since even Crazy Horse's exact year of birth can't be pinpointed, I doubt anyone, even among the Lakota would claim to know the birth date of his mother, let alone who her parents and sister were. Sure enough, the citation is a DVD. This information is not preceded by "may have been" or "could have been" which is probably appropriate for most of what we know about Crazy Horse, but stated as fact.
So, I suppose what Wikipedia means by "existing knowledge" is repeating and citing other sources. Only even that doesn't qualify Average Joe, because he needs to know enough to discern which sources are reliable and which aren't. This takes time and a certain ability to evaluate sources not just in their current, but also in their historical context.
Which leads me to the point of all this. It's tempting in a Wiki world when doing quick research to click on the top link in the search engine. In the case of Wikipedia the shear amount of information looks like you hit pay dirt, but you didn't. You hit on a bunch of information that could be right or could be wrong. In fact, the more detailed the entry, the more likely that a good bit of that information could be disputed by reputable scholars. Use Wikipedia the way we used encyclopedia's in the old days, as a jumping-of point for dates and chronology. Then go to the original sources (lots are now available online). Otherwise you risk simply repeating inaccurate information, and citing Wikipedia won't get you off the hook with a good editor.
Wikipedia, as the About page explains, "is written collaboratively by volunteers..." It goes on to explain, "visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge."[emphasis added] I'm honestly not sure what that qualifier "existing" means, and why that makes Average Joe any more qualified to write about it.
In the past year or so Wikipedia has risen to the top of the search engines for just about any topic. Even Googling Britannica brings it up just under the entry for the actual website (including a page which purports to catalog "mistakes and omissions" from the encyclopedia). This top billing has the psychological effect of implied authority. In fact, top billing has absolutely nothing to do with authority and everything to do with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). As someone who once worked for a site attempting to outdo Wikipedia, I know there are a variety of ways, like repetition and linking, to make a site rise above the competition, and none of these has anything whatsoever to do with accuracy.
The idea of information by plebiscite is alluring, especially to a gal like myself who gained, through self-study, as much or more knowledge of US government relations with Native Americans past and present as any PhD. Why shouldn't I be qualified to write an encyclopedia entry on the topic?
The problem is, you as the reader don't know what I know. That is, my entry could be pure fact or pure dribble, and if my entry is the first you've read on the subject, you have no way of determining that. Now the idea behind Wikipedia is that someone will come along, see that my entry is pure dribble (or that they just don't like my slant?) and edit it. Lucky you, if you stop by after the correction, but what if you stop by before? Or what if my entry was correct and someone makes it wrong? It all supposedly comes out in the wash, but your problem is knowing whether you came in on the rinse or the spin cycle.
Encyclopedias certainly aren't the end all and be all of information. As the Wikipedia entry points out, Britannica can get some things wrong too. (Though from what I saw they were of minor significance like the birth date in an actor's bio and his actual birth date.) But encyclopedias weren't meant to be the sole authority. Somewhere after fifth grade we all learned they should provide no more than a jumping-off point, providing "just the facts, ma'am."
As best I can tell, Wikipedia wants to appear as more than that. For fun I looked up the entry for Crazy Horse, a historical figure I've read quite a bit about. In fact, I've read just about everything cited and more. For his early life, the entry pretty much lays out the same story every biographer tells based on the original by Mari Sandoz, but when I read the entry under "Family," I immediately thought it read like some movie version. Since even Crazy Horse's exact year of birth can't be pinpointed, I doubt anyone, even among the Lakota would claim to know the birth date of his mother, let alone who her parents and sister were. Sure enough, the citation is a DVD. This information is not preceded by "may have been" or "could have been" which is probably appropriate for most of what we know about Crazy Horse, but stated as fact.
So, I suppose what Wikipedia means by "existing knowledge" is repeating and citing other sources. Only even that doesn't qualify Average Joe, because he needs to know enough to discern which sources are reliable and which aren't. This takes time and a certain ability to evaluate sources not just in their current, but also in their historical context.
Which leads me to the point of all this. It's tempting in a Wiki world when doing quick research to click on the top link in the search engine. In the case of Wikipedia the shear amount of information looks like you hit pay dirt, but you didn't. You hit on a bunch of information that could be right or could be wrong. In fact, the more detailed the entry, the more likely that a good bit of that information could be disputed by reputable scholars. Use Wikipedia the way we used encyclopedia's in the old days, as a jumping-of point for dates and chronology. Then go to the original sources (lots are now available online). Otherwise you risk simply repeating inaccurate information, and citing Wikipedia won't get you off the hook with a good editor.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Has the Internet Saved Fiction
Has the Internet saved short fiction? I think it has. While for many years editors and writers for print turned their noses up at the Internet, I think the Internet is the best thing that has happened to short fiction and poetry as well. Last time I had access to statistics for The Rose & Thorn, the zine was receiving upwards of 100,000 hits per month. Considering that according to this 2004 article, circulation for the The Paris Review, which apparently is on the high side, was about 10,000, then if even half or a third of R&T's hits were actual readers, that still compares very favorably.
Why is this happening? Two reasons that can't be ignored is that online publications are convenient and usually free. That's hard to compete with. According to the CLMP website
there are about 500 independent literary magazines now publishing. Anyone who subscribes or has purchased "sample copies before submitting" knows these guys are pricey. They have to be. That limits the number most of us can afford to subscribe to. If you don't subscribe you have to get yourself out to the local bookstores, which I've found, rarely carry more than a handful of literary journals at a time, making purchasing and reading them somewhat inconvenient.
Convenience and price can't be the only factors, though. Otherwise, why would periodicals like The New Yorker and the Atlantic ,with strong circulations, have cut back their fiction so drastically? The reasoning, from what I've heard, it that readers weren't interested in fiction the way they used to be, and the excuse for that was all the competing distractions, like TV and the Internet, providing instant gratification, so that consumers no longer wanted to take the time for a slow read.
Well, consumers are reading their other articles aren't they? And if you want to talk about distractions, where will you find more competition for the reader's attention than on the Internet where readers are being alerted to new e-mails and IMs, and with just a click can visit friends on MySpace and Face Book or view the newest video on YouTube or even listen to a radio show or watch a movie? Yet, people regularly sit at their laptops and seek out places to read short fiction, poetry, and essays on their computer screens.
The only reasonable explanation is that readers are finding more work on the Internet that they want to read.
I think many readers and writers have come to see the literary scene as a "closed system" or a good ole boy/girl network. Sure, young writers are emerging all the time, but check their bios and you'll usually find a prestigious MFA program or workshop or, what you might not see, is the well-known writer who recommended them. Indeed, as I noted on another blog, writers may not even realize just how weighted toward the "connected" writer, the selection process can be.
Many have complained that this favoring of writers within the network breeds a s certain sameness. I think it's more the opposite, that the new and unschooled writers are more likely to try out something different. Like babies trying out their first words, they're not worrying about how it sounds. They just want to communicate, and the result can sometimes be quite exciting.
I say sometimes, because every editor knows more people believe they can write than actually can. I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Most of the stuff we read is pretty bad. On the other hand, having credentials doesn't always make a writer good, or at least what I've been looking for at the zines I reviewed for. Sometimes, more experienced and schooled writers focus so much on technique they forget to write a good story. A work exhibiting a better than average technique can be edited into something much more polished, but a bad story can't be edited into a good one.
Most strictly online publications simply don't pay much attention to past credits. They vary an from anonymous submissions process to simply not giving credits listed in the e-mail or comments much value. Opening publications to a wide range of writers and genres has led to more of the kind of work readers like to read.
And that's how the Internet saved fiction.
Why is this happening? Two reasons that can't be ignored is that online publications are convenient and usually free. That's hard to compete with. According to the CLMP website
there are about 500 independent literary magazines now publishing. Anyone who subscribes or has purchased "sample copies before submitting" knows these guys are pricey. They have to be. That limits the number most of us can afford to subscribe to. If you don't subscribe you have to get yourself out to the local bookstores, which I've found, rarely carry more than a handful of literary journals at a time, making purchasing and reading them somewhat inconvenient.
Convenience and price can't be the only factors, though. Otherwise, why would periodicals like The New Yorker and the Atlantic ,with strong circulations, have cut back their fiction so drastically? The reasoning, from what I've heard, it that readers weren't interested in fiction the way they used to be, and the excuse for that was all the competing distractions, like TV and the Internet, providing instant gratification, so that consumers no longer wanted to take the time for a slow read.
Well, consumers are reading their other articles aren't they? And if you want to talk about distractions, where will you find more competition for the reader's attention than on the Internet where readers are being alerted to new e-mails and IMs, and with just a click can visit friends on MySpace and Face Book or view the newest video on YouTube or even listen to a radio show or watch a movie? Yet, people regularly sit at their laptops and seek out places to read short fiction, poetry, and essays on their computer screens.
The only reasonable explanation is that readers are finding more work on the Internet that they want to read.
I think many readers and writers have come to see the literary scene as a "closed system" or a good ole boy/girl network. Sure, young writers are emerging all the time, but check their bios and you'll usually find a prestigious MFA program or workshop or, what you might not see, is the well-known writer who recommended them. Indeed, as I noted on another blog, writers may not even realize just how weighted toward the "connected" writer, the selection process can be.
Many have complained that this favoring of writers within the network breeds a s certain sameness. I think it's more the opposite, that the new and unschooled writers are more likely to try out something different. Like babies trying out their first words, they're not worrying about how it sounds. They just want to communicate, and the result can sometimes be quite exciting.
I say sometimes, because every editor knows more people believe they can write than actually can. I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Most of the stuff we read is pretty bad. On the other hand, having credentials doesn't always make a writer good, or at least what I've been looking for at the zines I reviewed for. Sometimes, more experienced and schooled writers focus so much on technique they forget to write a good story. A work exhibiting a better than average technique can be edited into something much more polished, but a bad story can't be edited into a good one.
Most strictly online publications simply don't pay much attention to past credits. They vary an from anonymous submissions process to simply not giving credits listed in the e-mail or comments much value. Opening publications to a wide range of writers and genres has led to more of the kind of work readers like to read.
And that's how the Internet saved fiction.
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